QuakeFinder: Is earthquake prediction finally a reality?

The Parkfield disappointment

It’s one thing to model a quake in a chunk of rock, but a completely different thing to validate a theory in the field. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for quake hunters, even though earthquakes are happening nearly all the time somewhere, they don’t happen all that frequently in easy to monitor locations — even in California where QuakeFinder placed its initial sensors. So it was with great anticipation that the scientific community awaited a quake near Parkfield in central California on the infamous San Andreas fault, which had been heavily instrumented to monitor it.

Based on the history of large earthquakes near Parkfield in 1857, 1881, 1901, 1922, 1934, and 1966, as well as the similarity of the seismic activity that preceded each of them, scientists were drooling to analyze what they were predicting would be another quake prior to 1993. Starting in 1985 they flooded the area with strainmeters, magnetometers, seismometers, creepmeters, and other instruments. Then they waited — and waited. Finally, eleven years late, a quake occurred in 2004. Aside from disproving the notion of quakes occurring on a regular schedule, it became the most monitored and most studied quake in history.

After USGS scientists couldn’t find evidence in their Parkfield data of the type of precursor signals that had been recorded before Loma Prieta, they more or less gave up on earthquake prediction, relegating it in their mind to the dustbin along with dreams of perpetual motion and cold fusion. However, their analysis (and that of at least one PhD candidate who ground through it for his dissertation at Berkeley) didn’t explain all the signals that were recorded, and certainly didn’t use the pulse-counting techniques that QuakeFinder is using now to find precursors.

QuakeFinder comes of age: Finds patterns of pre-quake magnetic spikes

In several recent earthquake, QuakeFinder’s sensors have recorded increased numbers of pulses as much as two weeks before the event. While Stellar and QuakeFinder still have a lot of work to do in order to create software that can automatically detect these surges, its results are certainly promising. This chart from a QuakeFinder sensor shows the massive increase in magnetic pulses prior to an earthquake in Tacna, Peru:

Effective quake forecasting is about more than science

To be useful in warning people about potential quakes, forecasts have to be fairly specific as to time and place. Most of us in California live with the knowledge that there will be “another big one” on the Loma Prieta fault, but aside from building stronger structures, that knowledge isn’t very helpful on a day-to-day basis. Knowing that a quake will happen in a few days, or even a few hours, and which areas are likely to be affected would be much more useful. QuakeFinder’s early results show the potential for that type of accuracy, but it will take a lot more sensors, automated detection algorithms, and sophisticated filtering approaches to remove false positives generated by other sources to make useful forecasts a reality.

Even harder than getting the science right will be the politics of creating a meaningful and effective system to react to the data. Like any warning system, if it causes unnecessary panic it’ll be blamed for the loss of time and work. Conversely, if it is too conservative in sounding the alarm, then it will be considered ineffective. Having a warning window as much as two weeks in advance is also a blessing and a curse. It gives cities quite a bit of time to respond, but could also cause massive disruptions for what might turn out to be a minor event. Residents of hurricane and tsunami zones are familiar with the problem of false alarms.

Going beyond the simple notion of evacuating areas about to be hit by a major quake, accurate forecasting could usher in entire new ranges of products — the way storm shutters get deployed in advance of oncoming hurricanes, imagine ways to protect building occupants from shattered glass, for example. Relief supplies and repair crews could also be deployed in plenty of time for fast response. All in all, if QuakeFinder is successful, it will usher in a a new and lifesaving era of earthquake safety.

My understanding from reading various scientific reports is that the Japanese prediction system was discredited shortly thereafter (e.g. http://platetectonics.com/article.asp). It was one of many attempts to use seismic activity patterns to predict quakes. (Note, this is distinct from the Japanese alert system mentioned in the article)

http://www.facebook.com/rechkabo.kakuhoningen Rechkabo Kakuhoningen

Yes, a high-precision forecast of time, effort and space earthquake is raalnost. Just not QuakeFinder but TRON (Technology Real-time Online Nucleus)

The author loss the jet stream method to predict earthquake. The last
prediction information of major earthquake is M7.8 Iran earthquake on
2013/04/16. This M7.8 earthquake was predicted in advance on
2013/01/15 at CNN ireport. The epicenter deviation is about 60km, M was
predicted >6.0 , but time delayed 71 days.

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